


scions

by foundCarcosa



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 03:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2532857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian Vael's been looking for Andraste in the wrong places.</p>
            </blockquote>





	scions

**Author's Note:**

> As a matter of fact, I do have a headcanon that Daniel, the elf adopted by the Hawkes but who never truly became a Hawke, and Isabela are indeed scions of Shartan and Andraste, respectively. It leads into this AU about them leading an elven revolution that marches on Orlais, razes it, and turns it into New Arlathan... but that's another tale. ~

**i.**

He didn’t know what made him think of it. 

It wasn’t as if she was particularly pious — in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. She cursed and drank and sat with her legs spread wide. She fought dirty and wasn’t afraid to _get_ dirty. She seemed to take pride in making him blush, although he had to admit that he didn’t make it difficult for her, either.

If the Chantry’s depiction was to be believed, Isabela was the antithesis of the Maker’s Bride.  
And yet, when he caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye, under a certain slant of sunlight, with the breeze blowing her voluminous hair just so, he could have _sworn_ he was seeing Andraste.

"And she stepped into the Chantry, and beheld it, and found it utterly boring," Isabela commented as they stepped into the Chantry’s shadowy coolness. Sebastian sighed at the same time that Daniel snorted. "The Canticle of Isabela, Chapter One, Verse One."

Daniel cast Sebastian a sidelong look, and then countered, “Well, what about that?”

"What?" She followed hir finger. "The big bronze broad?"

"She looks like you," Daniel said matter-of-factly, and Sebastian pegged hir with a stunned, piercing look.

"I’m flattered, but I’d like to think I have more personality than a statue," Isabela responded, then took Daniel’s hand and placed it on one of her breasts. "I’m softer, too," she added with a wink.

Sebastian cleared his throat loudly, and banished every thought that compared Isabela to the Holy Andraste from his obviously-delusional mind.

**ii.**

"Must you _always_ be so crass?”

Isabela lifted her head, her dagger poised to lift the dirt from under her fingernail. Sebastian, who’d seemingly asked the question with as much exasperation as his voice could muster, watched her with a sullen look that seemed petulant and out-of-place on such a refined and worldly face.  
She lifted an eyebrow, then returned to her idle grooming.

"Yes, as a matter of fact. Must you always be so anal?" She chuckled loudly before he could reply. "Or maybe you’re just not getting _enough_ anal.”

Sebastian scoffed in disgust, colouring. “See, this is what I mean!”

"Well, love, you asked me an insulting question. Did you expect anything less?" She pulled her leg off the table and sat up straight, putting the dagger down on the table between them and looking Sebastian square in the eye. "What is it with you, anyway? It’s like you’ve built some nicey-nice image of me in your head and am angry at me for constantly fucking it up."

He didn’t answer right away. She watched his jaw flex — a nice jaw, all told, just like everything else about him. Everything but his attitude, anyway.

"Daniel said I looked like that Andraste statue in the Chantry. That what you think too? Because let me tell you, even if I was inclined to worship her, I sure as hell wouldn’t be worshipping the Chantry’s version.  
So, fine. I’ll be your Andraste. I like a bit of roleplay. But I’m not going to change to fit your image of her. Your image of her is going to need to change to fit me.”

Sebastian puffed up indignantly, and she laughed, a sound so free and infectious that he couldn’t remain indignant for long without looking and feeling foolish. “You’re too young to be so set in your ways, Chantry Boy. You know what? Let me paint a new Andraste for you. An Andraste for the Dragon Age. Shit, I’m actually beginning to _like_ this idea…”

**iii.**

Sebastian knelt and touched the lit taper to the red candles, one by one.

Sebastian blew out the taper and murmured a verse, clasping his hands to his chest so that the side of his thumb pressed against his sternum. Sebastian bowed his head over his hands and breathed in the fragrance of the candles, let their warmth suffuse him, cleared his mind of the debris of the day and waited to feel calm again.

Sebastian lifted his head after a long, drugging moment, and opened his eyes.

A mirage of Andraste shimmered in front of her statue like a Fade image, dark-skinned and dark-haired, with gold at her throat and ears and wrists, and the sea surging in her eyes.  
Shartan flickered at her elbow, and it seemed Sebastian knew that face too, knew those mismatched eyes and that blackwood staff…

Sebastian stumbled backwards as it hit him like a gale, breathing in so sharply that he began coughing, and the images were snuffed out like the candles at his feet.

**iv.**

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Isabela shifted, looked down at herself to make sure she wasn’t having a wardrobe malfunction, looked back at Sebastian with a bemused smile.

"I… nothing." No sarcasm, no pointed piety, just… nothing. He flushed, and looked away, and studiously kept his eyes from her from them on.

**v.**

Sebastian lingered on the steps of the Chantry, his fingers hovering above the door’s handle. He should have been inside by now. He should have been walking up the steps, lighting the taper, advancing towards the candles…

But he couldn’t. He knew what he would see if he did. The bronze effigy, once so comforting in its aloofness, was no longer enough — it seemed to melt away, insubstantial and effete, leaving the mirage of the ocean-eyed Rivaini in its place.

The sea seemed to surge in him, too, a tide that pushed him away from the Chantry doors, down the steps, down to Lowtown…

"Where you off to in such a hurry, Chantry Boy?" Isabela called, leaving the vendor whose exotic wares she was perusing to saunter towards him. The sea surged again, and he shook his head desperately, closing his eyes.

"You look like a man who needs a drink," she laughed when she neared, but the laugh died away soon enough. "Sebastian?"

"I think," Sebastian Vael croaked, a prickly heat spreading over his skin, "I think I am having a crisis of faith."

**vi.**

It was his fault. He had insisted on seeing her through man’s judgemental eyes, and not the Maker’s loving sight. Of course it was his fault, he thought as he sank into the hot, fragrant bath, surrendering to her sure hands and husky voice as she idly sang snatches of one song or another. How could the woman he’d watched decapitate two thieves with one grand sweep of her arms, who cleaned her fingernails with a dagger and played dice on the docks with hardened seamen, be so gentle as she bathed him, massaged his scalp, towelled him dry?  
And how could he have ever thought of resisting it?

"Do you think Andraste was just a battle maiden? Do you think all she did was yell about the Maker and kill the nonbelievers?" Isabela chuckled, tossing him a housecoat to cover himself with, even as she seemed to shed clothes every time she moved. "I have my suspicions about why the Canticle of Shartan was removed, for example. I mean, he was an elf, yeah, but also… well." She winked at him, but for once, he didn’t flush.

She made him tea, strong and spicy, but when he took the mug from her, his fingers brushed hers and lingered for longer than they should have. He set the tea down almost absently to reach for her hands, cradling and studying them as if seeing them for the first time, and all the while she watched him with that little smile of hers.

"What are you doing?" she finally asked him, gently, when his fingers drifted up her wrists and over her elbows.

"Making new vows," he answered, finally meeting her gaze, and when their lips met next, he could feel her smile.


End file.
